Of course, Lego spread out all the characters in a deft marketing move.

I will be able to safely ignore the Riddles in the Dark (or whatever it's called) set, as I already have a Gollum from LOTR and Bilbo's in several sets. What I have to decide is if I want to get the Bag End set. The Shire theme doesn't really fit in with any of the other sets.

Bag End will be one of my holiday presents. In the meantime, I've purchased Mirkwood and the Barrel Escape sets. I may get the Goblin King eventually but aside from finances, I still have quite the pile of unopened/unbuilt sets - Weathertop and Mines of Moria along with the Avengers Hellicarrier breakout and Star Wars Old Republic fighter.

After seeing the film, I think I may wind up buying all the remaining sets I don't own yet, just not all at once.

Mirkwood was not that enjoyable of a build for me and my purchase of that set was mainly minifig driven. It's funny how we won't see the scenes that set along with Barrel Escape are based upon until next year.

They could have easily done a Troll Attack set with some horses and the three Trolls. I wouldn't have minded a Rivendell set, either.

I'm surprised they didn't do the trolls too...

It looks like there will be a Fellowship of the Ring Rivendell set next year, but it will just have a table, Arwyn, Frodo, Gimli and Elrond...no big architecture set, no Galadriel or other "new" characters.